Healthcare is one of the world's most energy and resource-intensive sectors. But how much of that environmental burden is actually preventable and where in the system does real change begin?
A recent piece of research from Eunomia got us thinking hard about this question, and the answer points firmly upstream: towards procurement, not disposal.
The scale of the problem
Healthcare accounts for an estimated 4–5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, a figure that surprises many people given how closely the sector is associated with care and wellbeing rather than industry.
What's even more striking is the scale of plastic waste generated. Healthcare systems across Europe and North America produced approximately 2.1 million tonnes of single-use plastic waste in 2023 alone. Without significant intervention, that figure could exceed 2.9 million tonnes by 2040.
These aren't abstract statistics. They represent an enormous, ongoing environmental cost, one that the sector has the power to address if it focuses its energy in the right place.
The procurement insight that changes everything
Here's the crucial insight from Eunomia's research: the carbon and plastic footprint of healthcare is primarily determined at the point of procurement, not at the point of disposal.
This might seem counterintuitive. Most sustainability conversations in any sector tend to focus on what happens to products at end-of-life (how they're recycled, whether they end up in landfill, what happens after the moment of use). But when it comes to healthcare (and indeed most sectors), the environmental fate of a product is largely locked in by the time someone decides to buy it.
The materials chosen, the design decisions made, the suppliers selected, this is where the real leverage sits. And yet too often, procurement teams are working without the data infrastructure they need to make genuinely sustainable choices.
Five levers that could cut single-use plastic waste by 1.6 million tonnes annually
Eunomia's research identifies five key levers that applied together could collectively reduce single-use plastic waste in healthcare by up to 1.6 million tonnes every year:
Refuse and reduce unnecessary products
Reuse safe, durable alternatives where clinically appropriate
Substitute with safer, lower-impact materials where possible
Improve recyclability through better product and packaging design
Procure low-GHG emissions plastics where single-use remains necessary
What unites all five levers? They all require better data. You cannot refuse what you cannot measure. You cannot substitute what you do not understand. You cannot prove reuse or recycled content claims without a robust digital trail.
The packaging parallel
Whether you're a hospital system evaluating sterile packaging options or a brand owner reviewing your portfolio ahead of EPR deadlines, the challenge is the same: getting the right data to the right decision-makers early enough in the process for it to matter.
Whether in healthcare or any other sector, sustainability in packaging comes down to having the right data to make better procurement decisions from the start.
Our platform helps packaging and sustainability teams understand the full cost and environmental impact of their packaging choices, so that better decisions happen upstream, where they actually drive change, rather than as reactive scrambles after the fact.
The bigger picture
The Eunomia research is a timely reminder that sustainability is a systems challenge, not a disposal challenge. The most powerful interventions happen at the beginning of the product lifecycle, not at the end.
For any organisation (in healthcare, retail, FMCG, or beyond) the path to genuine sustainability runs through procurement. And procurement, in turn, runs through data.
Want to understand the full environmental and financial impact of your packaging choices before you commit to them? Reath's platform gives procurement and sustainability teams the data they need to make better decisions, upstream. Get in touch at reath.id